If you owned a business that provides a specific service, should someone be allowed to sue you to force you to change that service?
Sounds like a silly question, but it just happened to the dating website eHarmony.
By now everyone has seen the commercials touting how the website uses “29 dimensions” to match couples. What most may not know is the dating site was founded by an evangelical Christian pyschologist who was originally looking to pair heterosexual Christians. The site now puts values ahead of faith.
That apparently troubled Eric McKinley. Why? McKinley is gay. He filed a complaint with the New Jersey Attorney General’s office saying he felt disenfranchised by eHarmony because it only matched heterosexual people.
You can read more about on the Chicago Tribune's editorial page.
Long story short, New Jersey’s AG sued, eHarmony settled and now the website is not only being forced to offer a same-sex dating service, but it must pay $50,000 to the attorney general's office, $5,000 to the man who first brought the case and allow the new site's first 10,000 gay users to register free.
The Trib asks,
...since when do Americans have the right to force a company to do business their way? Should restaurants be required to cater to vegan and kosher diets? Should department stores have to stock petite sizes?
So again I ask: If you owned a business that provides a specific service, should someone be allowed to sue you to force you to change the service? Sounds like a slippery slope to me.
